We have a winner...

Wow! What a great giveaway! It's always fun to see so many people interested in winning cloth diapers. Welcome to all you new followers, thanks for joining us here and participating in the latest giveaway! I just love being able to share with readers here, so if you love giveaways, be sure to follow along with us in your favorite way, just click on the circular watercolor icons on the left to subscribe to blog posts, follow on instagram, twitter, and facebook! 

{images property of Buttons Diapers}

Of course, there is only one winner for this giveaway, and that would be Sarah Hayes! Rafflecopter randomly picked her entry as the winner of the Buttons Diapers trial pack. Sarah has 48 hours to reply by email and claim her prize. If the prize goes unclaimed an alternate will be chosen and notified by email. 

Now do me a favor and comment below with the answer to the following 2 questions so I can make sure to keep the fun posts and prizes coming. 1. What are your favorite giveaways to enter? 2. What products do you actually take time to read through the reviews to learn more about? 

Thanks again for your participation, I love being able to interact with the little community here on my teensy corner of the internet. 

Have a great week, and thanks again to Buttons Diapers for the opportunity to share cloth diapers with BnG readers! 

Buttons Cloth Diapers: Feature, Review, + Giveaway

We have been a cloth-diapering family for 3 years now and I am still so glad we made the switch from disposables when we did. We have saved so much money and cloth diapering has lent itself to a lot of other lifestyle changes as well. Plus, they are just so stinkin' cute!

I recently came across Buttons Cloth Diapers on facebook through a cloth diapering blog that I follow and asked them to partner with me here to share more about their product, and of course give one of you the chance to try them out!

They sent us a lovely diaper cover of my choice, and since most of what we already have is very gender neautral I chose a girly print with pink flowers, called Afternoon Tea. Since then they've launched several new prints, my favorites are Brave and Precious, head on over to their site to choose your favorites!

I really love the fit of this diaper cover, it's very adjustable for a custom fit around baby's tummy and legs. I first tried it out when Aurelia was just a year old. She's 17 months today and because of the elastic and snaps it fits just as nicely, with room to adjust up as she grows. I like how the inserts snap in and my favorite part is how the legs have extra protection from leaks, with a double gusset.

Buttons Cloth Diapers is generously giving away a trial pack (1 diaper cover and 1 daytime insert) to one Breaking new Ground reader. Enter below through rafflecopter for your chance to try out these adorable and affordable diapers...if you can't wait to see if you win, click through to their site to buy some of your own. They're too cute to pass up!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This contest begins Saturday February 20th, 2016 and is open until midnight Saturday February 27th, 2016. All entries will be verified for correct terms met to qualify. A winner will be chosen at random by Rafflecopter. The winner will be announced here and notified by email at the address associated with their Rafflecopter entries. The winner will have 48 hours to reply to the email to claim their prize or an alternate will be chose.

Interested in seeing your product featured here, see the PR + Disclosures tab and contact Breaking New Ground by email to be considered. Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review. All opinions are my own.This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with, Facebook.  Click for additional disclosures and PR policies.

Questions, concerns, comments unrelated to the nature of this giveaway should be emailed to Breaking New Ground. See the contact tab at the top for information.

refresh

oh, hi there pretty new blog design...

If you're catching up with me on a reader and you can't see the header, it's worth a click through to my site to check it out. I don't mean to brag, but I will a bit because my husband made this pretty new title for me. I told him what I wanted and he made my vision come to life! He also made a couple mini-versions for instagram and facebook that you should take a look at. 

It's nice to have a simple little refresh as I slowly work on updating this space more frequently. I'm glad you're here! If you haven't already, take a look at the little turquoise buttons on the left to connect with me on social media, and to follow through feedly or your favorite blog reader. 

Happy Friday!

creative outlets

It's not too often I have time for hobbies (like this one, obviously) but when I'm motivated enough I'll find a way to get to something. Lately I've been really inspired by a few creative ladies I discovered through Instagram. It started with one really pretty wall hanging and suddenly I now follow half a dozen new people so I can ooh and aaw at all their pretty creations. (come follow me for more photos + a sneak peek at my new blog design!)

I turned to Pinterest to learn more about how to make my own woven wall hanging. I got distracted there for quite a while, was drawn into the world of macrame (next project for sure!), then came back to woven tapestries and zeroed in on two tutorials. I started with this post at Gathering Beauty, using her technique to create a "loom" from a picture frame, and I referred to another post at A Beautiful Mess for some of the different weaving techniques as I went. I don't intend to post my own tutorial, but wanted to share my first-try. 

photos by b.lovely photography 

I started small for two reasons: one being that I am impatient and wanted to finish it quickly, and second because I was limited by supplies, especially the size of frame I had for my quick DIY loom. 

The great thing about this project was the ability to work on it in small bits. Even better that it was small, I could set it down just about anywhere and it was fairly out of the way. I worked on it snuggled up on the couch watching "Tiny House Hunters" on HGtv with my family over a weekend, I worked on it during naps when I wanted to sit and relax, and I mostly worked on it in the evening when all the kiddos were in bed and Ben and I were settled in for the night. Overall it took me about 2 weeks of working on it every few days. 

I went for a blue/grey color scheme to reflect the winter weather we've been having and because I had a lot of varied textured yarns in that range of colors. It works well hung where my paper flower wreath was last spring, and our felt wreath hung over the holidays. 

Choosing the types of weaves to do and which colors and textures to pair together was probably the best part. The hardest part was making sure I stayed with the pattern once I got going and learning how to do something different than the basic over under pattern. 

I didn't particularly like the way you could see the thread on some of the blue parts at first, but now it's kind of grown on me, just more texture. The not-so-fun part was weaving/sewing in all the ends and typing it to the dowel to hang it up. 

When working on something new, I like to remind myself "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful" which, if you're not familiar, is a quote from Myquillyn AKA The Nester. It applies to so many parts of life and is always true. 

I'm definitely planning on getting a larger loom soon and creating more, learning as I go. I see this little DIY quickly becoming a new creative outlet and hobby to enjoy.

oh hey...

winter.

I usually don't mind it so much, and I don't complain about the rain like most, but the sickness. Oh the sickness! If my memory serves me correctly (and it certainly may not) we haven't been quite this sick (in intensity, frequency, and longevity) for about 2 years.

Last winter our kiddos did have quite the battle with ear infections, which was pretty miserable. Malakai ended up getting tubes put in last June and Aurelia got pretty close but thankfully it wasn't necessary. Des rarely gets ear infections, but he gets knocked out with respiratory infections due to some asthma. 

This winter, we've got it all. First it was colds with a lingering cough. Two months later and I'll still get to coughing if I talk too long. The main culprit lately has been the stomach bug that just won't quit. Over the past 2 weeks we have each sucummed to some form of it. I'm not even entirely sure we all got the same thing because of how varied our symptoms were, but one triage nurse did say that the same virus can present differently in each person affected. It would hit one of us, then we'd all be fine, a couple days would pass and then someone else or the same person would suddenly be sick. It was always gone long enough to think we were in the clear and then, boom, someone else came up really sick. Malakai has been sick 3 times in the past 2 weeks!

 

{daddy played some music to cheer us up}

It's so sad to see your kiddos sick and not be able to do much about it. It's even worse when they're missing fun events that they've been looking forward to. One praise is that February 2nd was Ben's birthday and we all managed to stay well for long enough to celebrate him, however he was hit in the middle of the night that night and there we were again...

Thus my attempts to blog more in 2016 have been thwarted so far by the diseases of the season. We are finally feeling better and praying hard against any more bouts of illness this winter! So far we are all feeling pretty good!

So make sure to subscribe, like, and follow for upcoming posts. Expect a couple giveaways, tutorials, and the like!